I thought we'd take a look at the UK charts from the 00's on this site, mainly so I can feature more alternate art on this site given how I've become a sucker for doing so lately. Again I'll update this list with original commentary when I find my muse as I've still had a bit of creater burnout lately.
This was a bit of a mini comeback for Lady gaga from her debut album as it was the first song of hers to have an accompanying music video which went on to overshadow the song itself, in this case it was due to her going over the top with the visuals as she went out of her way to depict the paparazzi as both glamourous and villainous as she could possibly get away with which connected with audiences.
This is often considered as one of the worst songs of the decade, mainly for how repetitive it is as well as how awful the lyrics are. Basically, it's a song that serves more as a warmup to Fergie's solo album as it can be considered the predecessor for that album's single "Fergalicious" which also has her and Will I am gawking at how attractive she is.
We haven't looked at a Coldplay song on this site since "Yellow" on my 2001 list, this is because they didn't have much success with their singles here in Australia during the first half of the decade likely due to them being the victims of digital piracy throughout the decade. Fortunately, that was a thing of the past by the time they released their fourth album this year which allowed this Billboard chart topper to be a success down under.
This was originally released two years prior from the Swedish pop star September (real name Petra Marklund) it wasn't a big hit anywhere in the world for some reason which led to it fading into obscurity. It was given a second chance this year when a British DJ remixed it where it became a massive success for her everywhere in the world including America which was unusual for a European artist by this point in time.
This was a passing of the torch moment as it not only was the first of many hits that David Guetta would have in his career, but also the final hit that Kelly Rowland would have as she wouldn't touch the charts in the 2010's both solo and as a featured artist. It seemed like the French DJ had a bit of a death touch on his first album when it came to the artists careers he featured, although thankfully it was only for this one album.
This was the first song that Akon had a hit with outside of his native America, I'm guessing due to the countless jokes that have been made that involve him duetting with Alvin and the Chipmunks as that's what it sounds like to most people whenever they listen to this ballad. The chorus is a sped-up version of "Mr. lonely" from Bobby Vinton released forty years prior to when this became a huge international chart topper.
It looked like Beyonce's second solo album would be a huge flop for her worldwide given how the singles on the standard edition failed to become hits for her, she obviously had other plans as this bonus track from the deluxe edition managed to become a huge hit for her which restored the popularity of the album shortly after its release. The song is best known for the lines "to the left to the left" which she repeats throughout the track.
This was only a sleeper hit here in Australia for the Gorillaz, a British band that consists of an animated counterpart with art done by the same people who made the Tank girl comics in the 90's. Their debut single was a hip hop track named after the Hollywood actor (despite his name not appearing once in the lyrics) which was a surprise hit for the band considering how quirky and unconventional the song is.
This is another song on this site that I'm going to have a hard time being nice to, mainly because it repeats the word suicidal a disturbing number of times (fifteen to be exact) despite it not being a song about that subject matter and instead about how in love Sean Kingston is with the girl he's singing to. I guess there's also the Ben E King sample from JR Rottem, however that's not really why people dislike this song.
It's strange that Lily Allen wouldn't have any success in Australia prior to the two big hits she had this year, especially considering how "Smile" was a big hit for her in NZ and yet neither of these entries were as such over there. This had a bit of a long climb to its success as she didn't originally shoot a video for it until early this year despite it being released at the end of the previous year.
To date, this is P!nk's biggest hit largely thanks to how bombastic it remains in her catalogue which many fans (me included) feel is where she's at her best. It was the lead single to her breakup album Funhouse which she made while she was separated with her husband, although the two managed to patch things up during its production which I guess makes it the opposite to an album like Rumours from Fleetwood mac.
The original version of this track won the Oscar for best original song due to it being extensively used in the film Slumdog millionaire, however that song is largely in Indian and as such, wasn't going to connect with an English-speaking audience. A.R Rahman went to the Pussycat dolls of all people to commission an English-speaking remix of the track which allowed them to have a massive worldwide hit.
This is a song that was a massive success here in Australia but was ineligible to chart on ARIA due to not having a physical release here in Australia, fortunately this wasn't an issue in NZ as they had fully incorporated digital sales onto their charts by the time it was released as a single over there. I feel this song's placement on this list is an accurate representation of how popular it was here in Australia given its overplay back in the day.
Well it looks like this was an excellent year for European DJ's (or in this case a group of German DJ's) to dig up older songs and put their own spin on them for the clubs of the day, this time we have Scooter who dug up the Supertramp classic of the same name and scored a massive chart topper here in Australia with this formula much like DJ Otzi did earlier on this list.
This was the first of three hit singles that Dutch DJ Fedde le grand managed to achieve worldwide thanks to having a provocative music video to accompany it going viral on YouTube, imagine how much bigger this would've been if the mainstream included YouTube views onto their respective charts.
This was a fantastic year for Lily Allen here in Australia as she not only managed to score two big hits from her second album, but the album itself was a massive success proving how much we Aussies loved her coming out of the 00's. Here she is with the third single from that album which is a song about how she feels her partner is being too mean to her which audiences related to worldwide.
While Eminem had success the previous year with "My name is," it was this song that made him an overnight sensation due to it essentially being him calling out all of the double standards not just in the music industry but in pop culture in general whilst having a catchy beat and a hilarious video to go along with what he has to say. It was a massive hit for him whilst also reassuring people that his vulgar content wasn't meant to be taken too seriously.
It looks like 2pac was still able to find success in the mainstream nine years after his death as Eminem decided to take one of his previously unreleased songs and pair it with "Indian sunset" by Elton John which helped it become the rappers biggest hit here in Australia as well as getting him out of the one hit wonder bin that "California love" had trapped him in months prior to his untimely demise.
This was the only hit from American RNB singer Mario Winans anywhere in the world, I'm guessing because it samples the Enya track "Boadicea" which is why she has a featuring credit on this track despite not having any vocals on here. Another featured artist was P Diddy who provides a guest verse to reinforce why Mario doesn't want anything more to do with the person he's singing about.
This was the first hit that Gym class heroes had in their career, mainly due to it sampling "Breakfast in America" from Supertramp likely to help them establish a fanbase through the nostalgia circuit that was becoming increasingly popular around the time the digital age began taking over the mainstream worldwide. Lyrically this makes sense given how both songs are about the narrator finding their girlfriend to be mediocre for them.
This was the last hit single that Will Smith had anywhere in the world, although by this stage he was more well known as an actor than a rapper given how he only released two albums in the new millennium. I know I'm far from the first person to make this observation, but I feel this was meant to be the theme to his film Hitch which has him playing a love doctor for Kevin James in a rare rom com he stars in.
We have another EDM song for this list, this time it's from the British/Australian duo the Bodyrockers who scored a massive hit worldwide with their one and only hit from their one and only album. It's a song that was a big success back in the day and has lived on due to its usage in commercials over the years, although the duo would go their separate ways when they failed to score a second hit.
An interesting fact about Nelly Furtado's third album Loose was that the album cycle was different depending on where in the world you're from, as such this was the lead single to her album in the UK as opposed to her earlier entry which was the lead single in most other parts of the world including here in Australia and NZ. I'm guessing the Brits wanted to hear a female perspective of the Hall and Oates track of the same name.
This was the lead single to Eminem's album the Eminem show, an album that's meant to be a display for all of the rapper's thought process given how his previous two albums had been criticised for the way it influenced the youth of the day. This is far more light-hearted compared to the rest of the album (complete with a wacky music video) however it does fit in the theme of him making art and not propaganda on the album.
Well, this is certainly a surprise, mainly because this was the first single that Westlife released without the presence of Brian McFadden and yet it remains their biggest hit here in Australia. Considering that Brian would go on to have more success on his own than what the band ever achieved, I would've thought his absence would sink the group.
This had a bit of a climb to its success here in Australia, mainly because we Aussies didn't seem to have much love for British artists this decade, although at least we had more love for them than America where they had close to no success on Billboard. Liberty X were the runners up on the first season of Popstars UK, meaning they were more popular here than the winners Hear'say who never charted here.
This was a song that showcases a more sexually provocative side of Justin Timberlake given how it has lyrics alluding to BDSM which I'm surprised were unedited for the radio back in the day. It was an easy hit for the former N sync member given this was back in the day where former child stars moved into adulthood in the most sexual (and some might say tacky) was possible.
Although this came bundled with her earlier entry on this list here in Australia, ARIA was kind enough to count this as a separate entry on their charts which allows me to include both of these songs on this list. I get why this song was a hit for Beyonce even though I personally find it irritating to listen to, it's about how being single isn't a bad thing and that one shouldn't feel pressured into settling down when they're not ready.
This was another hit to come from a Jamaican artist this decade here in Australia but not over in NZ, I guess the kiwis had finally grown tired of reggae music after three decades of embracing it throughout the twentieth century. In any case, we have this one and only hit from Kevin Lyttle which can be taken the wrong way as a song about forcing a romance due to the lyrics but has rarely been taken as such due to how catchy it is.
Coyote ugly gets a bit of a bad rep these days, mainly because people don't find it campy enough to be a so bad it's good film whilst also finding it to be too tired and cliched to be a genuinely good film. I personally like it mainly for its uplifting story about a songwriter finding success in the music industry, this theme song from the film being one of the songs she wrote in universe and what transitioned Leann Rimes from country to pop music.
You know I was once a naive young child who thought this song was literally about making milkshakes, yeah it turns out this song is much raunchier than that the video would have you believe. All I'll say is that the clue comes from where milk tends to come from and the line "I can teach you, but I'd have to charge" and let my readers figure out the rest from there. It was a massive hit here in Australia likely due to us Aussies instantly figuring out the true meaning of the song and feeling titillated by it.
Given how there was so much 80's nostalgia throughout the decade, it's surprising that it wasn't until the end of the decade that we saw a hit with a song that could've easily come out of that decade which came to us courtesy of the British duo La roux. It's a shame that this was their one and only hit especially considering how it managed to crossover to America the following year for them.
This was the second single from Rihanna's Good girl gone bad album, it wasn't nearly as big a hit as her earlier entry on this list even though we Aussies certainly appreciated the rock edge this song has. It kind of reminds me of "Black cat" from Janet Jackson as that was another rock track from an artist who only released RNB tracks prior to its success, and indeed Rihanna would have more rock hits in her career.
This was the only other hit that Atomic Kitten managed to achieve in Australia, I'm guessing because they interpolate the Blondie classic of the same name in the chorus while they provide their own verses which makes the song their own. Like many British groups of the late 90's and early 00's, they were much more popular in NZ likely due to the kiwis following the British charts as opposed to the American charts like we were.
Given how two of the members had released highly successful albums between the trio's third and fourth album, the fact this was able to pick up where the singles from Survivor left off three years prior is impressive as you'd think fans would've gravitated away from the group by this point. Indeed, Destiny fulfilled was their final album as a unit as they would go their separate ways after its album cycle was done.
Technically this was the big hit off of I am Sasha Fierce here in Australia as "Single ladies" and "If I were a boy" were bundled together which allowed them to both be bigger on our charts, I can see how this was the standout track down under given how it's a song about Beyonce finding the inner beauty of the person she's singing to which admittedly is a nice change of pace from her other material.
Keri Hilson was on a roll over in NZ as this became her biggest hit over there thanks to how much good will she had following her breakthrough with Timbaland from two years prior, here she recruits Kanye West and Ne-Yo for this song about how she's fallen for the person she's singing to (likely Ne-Yo since he takes up quite a lot of time on this song.) It would be her final hit outside of her native America.
Following the massive success she had from the start of the decade with Italian DJ Spiller, Sophie Ellis Bextor released her debut album which was off to a slow start given how she chose her cover of Cher's "Take me home" as its lead single which unfortunately flopped for her everywhere except her native UK. This was the second single from the album which did much better due to its hilarious video to bring these lyrics to life.
This will be Dido's only single appearance on the Australian side of my site, oh sure she scored a ton of success with her first two albums here and scored two additional hits over in NZ with "Thank you" and "Here with me," however this ballad from her second album was the best she could do here given how her fans knew that Sony would pull it from shelves soon after its initial release to promote said album.
Well, I did warn you that this song would be much lower on this list than you'd think, once again you can thank Sony for this blunder who not only delayed this song's release by a month, but also had the audacity to pull it from shelves two months after it did come out. I'll go into details with these songs that suffered this sort of fate when I get around to the NZ side of these lists.
For whatever reason, Alicia Key's second album was a complete dud outside of her native America, I'm guessing this was due to the existence of the bootleg remix of "Karma" known as "Karmastition" which I vividly remember playing on the radio in lieu of anything from the album back in the day. Fortunately, her third album was able to spawn a massive hit with its lead single which restored her popularity worldwide.
It took her nearly a decade, but Britney Spears was finally able to have a second Billboard chart topper with this lead single to her album Circus likely due to her embracing the sexual nature of herself which she does tenfold in the music video. At the risk of coming off as mean towards this track, I have to say that this is one of the most repetitive songs to ever become a success as the title is repeated over forty times throughout its runtime.
If you think stoner culture is anything new, then you should probably know that this comedy track from Afroman was a huge worldwide chart topper despite being little more than a song about how him being a stoner had ruined his life (I personally don't find it funny but evidently a lot of people did.) This was his one and only hit despite being a legitimate rapper who's released several albums in his career.
Given the discourse that "Milkshake" by Kelis has had since its release in America, I'd hate to think of how the internet would react to this track from the Sugababes given how it's also built around a sexual innuendo that I doubt most of it would understand (here's a hint, the button in question isn't to an elevator like the video suggests.) They would only have one more hit in Australia after this before they faded into obscurity.
It's hard to say if this was a hit in Australia on our digital charts given how it was released prior to when we began tracking what was popular in that format, what I do know is that this was a massive hit for Corinna Bailey Rae in NZ and her native UK thanks to how joyous and happy this RNB ballad remains to this day. It was unfortunately her only hit as her debut album failed to catch on despite this song's success.
Although his earlier song outranked this when it comes to their respective chart runs, this second single from Hot shot was actually the biggest hit of Shaggy's career in Australia likely due to it sampling both "Angel of the morning" (specifically Juice Newton's cover from 1981) and "The joker" from Steve Miller. It's also the second hit that he had with Rayvon who previously collaborated with him on his cover of "In the summertime."
This was the first of two singles to be released from the deluxe edition of Chris Brown's second album Exclusive, an album that already did quite well here in Australia (a rarity for an RNB album here) but received a boost in popularity with this edition. It was also one of the last hits he had before he would have his public persona drastically altered due to an incident involving his then girlfriend Rihanna.
This was the last hit that Beyonce had from her I am Sasha fierce album, it's also one of the last songs she had a hit with that is a love song as she had become a full feminist by this point in her career to appeal to the rising fourth wave of the moment. Even though it was a massive hit internationally, it wasn't as big in her native America likely due to it feeling out of place with her new brand.
This was the last big hit that Ronan Keating had anywhere in the world both solo and as a member of Boyzone, although he would become a pop crooner on his later work along the likes of Michael Bublé and Michael Crawford so it's not like his popularity dwindled as far as his career was concerned. Here we have a cover of one of Garth Brook's earliest songs which suggests he was experimenting with country music.
This is one of two hits that Dizzee rascal had here in Australia during his EDM phase, we'll look at his other hit in a bit but suffice to say, his longtime fans were disappointed that he abandoned his hip hop roots towards the end of the decade to find success with some of the biggest DJs in the music scene.
This was the second single from OneRepublic as well as the first they released that didn't require their producer to "present" them like their earlier entry on this list (I never understood what the point of that was.) It was a massive sleeper hit for the band this year likely due to it having a dreamy atmosphere to it that some have felt has categorised everything Ryan Tedder is involved with both as a performer and writer.
Oh, Bloodhound gang, you were a bunch of very naughty boys indeed as you made this track which came complete with a music video that was clearly meant to shock and horrify audiences from back in the day. Of course, this was going to be a huge success for the band given how this was back in the day where people were rewarded with being provocative in the mainstream rather than shunned.
While this was a decently big hit for Jamelia in her native UK the previous year, it was a massive success here in Australia likely due to us Aussies finding more love for this empowerment anthem that she made likely for her significant other. It allowed her to have a second hit down under (which we'll get to in a bit) before she sadly faded into obscurity here and the rest of the world.
This was the world's introduction to Kesha, I bring this up because by the end of the year, Kesha reportedly begged her label to remove her credit on this track which tells you how embarrassed she was to be on here in the first place. I guess she didn't like how she helped Flo Rida interpolate the Dead or alive track from the 80's that this song is named after, although audiences this year certainly did.
We looked at Kelly Rowland's solo debut from earlier on this list, now let's look at the song that introduced Beyonce as a solo artist which comes complete with a guest verse with her future husband Jay z who she's obviously crazy in love with on this track. It feels weird that this wasn't among the bigger hits of the year in Australia, mainly because I remember this being overplayed to hell and back.
We've finally arrived at what many people consider to be the quintessential track from Green day as it doubles as both a breakup anthem as well as a song attacking the American political climate of the mid 00's. For me, I always felt this song was a rip off of Avril Lavigne's "My happy ending" mostly for the "oh oh's" feeling ripped from that song on this track, although many have argued it working better on here.
Now I know I should hate this song for sampling "Tainted love" from Soft Cell, however that song is so good with its instrumentation that I don't mind that it was used so egregiously by JR Rottem even if it did lead to a career of sampling other oldies for (then) modern songs to diminishing returns. I think this works mostly for Rihanna who has a lot of presence on here to make the sample work in her favour.
I was surprised when I realised this song wasn't a hit here in Australia back in the day, not even on our digital charts which would've been the perfect explanation for why this underperformed on our charts if it were a hit through that medium. Fortunately, the kiwis were able to recognise this as a hit upon its initial release over there, likely because of how they can relate to Lily's sadism in the lyrics.
It may surprise you to learn that "Everytime we touch" wasn't a hit for Cascada here in Australia, heck it was a hit in America which should tell you how popular that track was and still remains to this day. Fortunately, the German band were able to score a massive hit here three years later with this track due to it being among the earlier songs to cash in on the club boom that would explode around this time.
This was a great year for artists to discover older tracks and remix them for their own songs, here we have the German group Boogie pimps taking the Jefferson airplane song of the same name and remixing its chorus for an easy worldwide hit for them. This won't be the only song on this list to find success with this formula as we'll see other entries as we go further down.
This is one of those songs I personally find to be irritating, namely because there's only so many times I can hear the phrase shut up before I personally go insane. With that said, this was a massive follow up to "Where is the love" worldwide for the Black-eyed peas as it depicts Fergie telling the other three members to shut up in the chorus as they spit bars about how they treat her and her not putting up with it.
This was meant to be the middle ground between P!nk's earlier material and her second album given how it's a hybrid of a pop rock jam and an RNB joint to bridge her early fans with the music she wanted to make. It paid off for her as the rest of her career saw her moving in a rock direction to the point where her first album feels like a complete black sheep from the rest of her catalogue.
This is a song that feels like it was meant for BEP but Will I am instead gave to the Pussycat dolls given how it sounded too similar to "My humps" (at least conceptually) to be included on Monkey business, that would explain why he provides a guest verse on here and why there's that refrain that sounds like a prototype to "Boom boom pow" from later in the decade. It was another easy hit for the girls, proving they were on a roll this year.
